To the untrained novice, panning start off as a fun way to mess with sounds – “| can make it go like this!” – but when the novelty wears off, it’s time to start learning the reasons for audio panning, and the panning techniques that will guide you through your mixing career. It’s time to learn how to correctly pan vocals, deal with bassline stereo field, and plenty more subjects.
Panning instruments in a mix is a skill you can learn through trial and error, but you’d probably prefer to learn it with more trial and less error!
DON’T START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON
Try not to start off creating your track with the mixer channels panned by default. At the beginnning of a track-making and mixing session, it’s worth panning everything to the centre to begin with to get an idea of the overall balance of the track and acheive a decent general mix. While you are doing this, you can make a list or mental note of the track’s elements so you can think about what might be moved around in the soundstage, and decide how to pan vocals, keys, instruments and more.
NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE PANNED
Don’t start off your track assuming that everything needs to be panned. Go through the mix gradually assigning further and further pan positions to tracks. Just think about the elements that need to be emphasised and try panning them. If it doesn’t sound right, bring them back to the centre.
Elements that are almost always panned centrally in electronic music are the kick drum, bassline, vocals and snare drum – at least!
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